Nick Cave > Quotes

“Music is storming, driving, relentless, devotional, slinky, subtle, heartbreakingly-beautiful sounds that, lyrically, switch from the cynical to the sanguine, the defeated to the defiant, dealing in love, war, beauty, children, romance, rejection, Pethedine, poetry, panties, God, Auden, Johnny Cash, cold potatoes, too-much-money, not enough money, writer’s block, flowers, animals and more flowers. But maybe I’m projecting here.”
― Nick Cave

“But if you're gonna dine with them cannibals
Sooner or later, darling, you're gonna get eaten . . .”
― Nick Cave

“And she moves among the sparrows. And she floats upon the breeze. She moves among the flowers. She moves something deep inside of me”
― Nick Cave

“Inspiration is a word used by people who aren't really doing anything.”
― Nick Cave

“Samuel: What's a misanthrope?
Two Bob: A misanthrope is a bugger who hates every other bugger.
Samuel: Are we misanthropes?
Arthur: Lord no! We're family. ”
― Nick Cave

“People think I'm a miserable sod but it's only because I get asked such bloody miserable questions.”
― Nick Cave

“If you got a trumpet, get on your feet, brother, and blow it!”
― Nick Cave

“I don't believe in an interventionist God
But I know, darling, that you do
But if I did I would kneel down and ask Him
Not to intervene when it came to you
Not to touch a hair on your head
To leave you as you are
And if He felt He had to direct you
Then direct you into my arms

Into my arms, O Lord
Into my arms, O Lord
Into my arms, O Lord
Into my arms

And I don't believe in the existence of angels
But looking at you I wonder if that's true
But if I did I would summon them together
And ask them to watch over you
To each burn a candle for you
To make bright and clear your path
And to walk, like Christ, in grace and love
And guide you into my arms

Into my arms, O Lord
Into my arms, O Lord
Into my arms, O Lord
Into my arms

And I believe in Love
And I know that you do too
And I believe in some kind of path
That we can walk down, me and you
So keep your candlew burning
And make her journey bright and pure
That she will keep returning
Always and evermore

Into my arms, O Lord
Into my arms, O Lord
Into my arms, O Lord
Into my arms

”
― Nick Cave, Complete Lyrics

“...because once you've got one scar on your face or your heart, its only a matter of time before someone gives you another - and another - until a day doesn't go by when you aren't being bashed senseless, nor a town that you haven't been run out of, and you get to be such a goddamn mess that finally it doesn't feel right unless you're getting the Christ beaten out of you - amd within a year of that first damming fall, those first down borne fists, your first run out, you wind up with flies buzzing around your eyes, back at the same place, the same town, deader than when you left, bobbiong around in the swill - a dirty deadbeat whore in a roadside ditch. But a little part of you deosn't die. A little part of you lives on. And you make an orphan of that corrupt and contemtible part, dumping it right smack in the laps of the ones who first robbed you of your sweetness, for it is the wicked fruit of their crimes, it is their blood, their sin, it belongs there, this child of blood, this spawn of sin...”
― Nick Cave, And the Ass Saw the Angel

“When?' said the moon to the stars in the sky
Soon' said the wind that followed them all

Who?' said the cloud that started to cry
Me' said the rider as dry as a bone

How?' said the sun that melted the ground
and 'Why?' said the river that refused to run

and 'Where?' said the thunder without a sound
Here' said the rider and took up his gun

No' said the stars to the moon in the sky
No' said the trees that started to moan

No' said the dust that blunted its eyes
Yes' said the rider as white as a bone

No' said the moon that rose from his sleep
No' said the cry of the dying sun

No' said the planet as it started to weep
Yes' said the rider and laid down his gun”
― Nick Cave

“I don't particularly believe all love is doomed. But I guess, one is usually kinda suffering from some aborted love affair or association, rather than being at the peak of one. I think it's fairly obvious that a lot more suffering goes on in the name of love than the little happiness you can squeeze out of it.”
― Nick Cave

“I just found this world a hard place to be good in,’ says Bunny, then he closes his eyes and, with an expiration of breath, goes still.”
― Nick Cave, The Death of Bunny Munro

“I look at you and you look at me and
deep in our hearts know it

That you weren't much of a muse,
but then I weren't much of a poet”
― Nick Cave

“I’m forever near a stereo saying, ‘What the fuck is this garbage?’ And the answer is always the Red Hot Chili Peppers.”
― Nick Cave

“Said 2,000 years of Christian history, baby
And you ain't learned to love me yet?”
― Nick Cave

“I was about 12 years old and I was sitting watching the television and it was some kind of talent show, you know, and on marches this monkey, this ape, in a pair of red-checked trousers with a little matching jacket holding a ukelele and it started jigging around playing it, and it was looking straight into the camera, straight at me, and I remember thinking, that's it, that'll be me, you know, that'll be me.”
― Nick Cave

“You searched through all my poets,
From Sappho through to Auden,
I saw the book fall from your hands,
As you slowly died of boredom.”
― Nick Cave, Complete Lyrics

“I've always had an obligation to creation, above all.”
― Nick Cave

“In the hysterical technocracy of modern music, sorrow is sent to the back of the class where it sits, pissing its pants in mortal terror.”
― Nick Cave, The Secret Life Of The Love Song And The Flesh Made Word: Two Lectures By Nick Cave

“And I know why our friendship must be kept a secret. Or they will kill You like they killed You in the Bible. And then we could not be together. If not for them we would live in this valley together. As best friends. But we must be careful, Jesus. I think I would die if anything happened to You...' - she cried ah think, for ah could hear her little sobs as she spoke - '...just close my eyes and die.' And she let fall a heavy tear, and it passed through the slats and exploded upon mah face, just below the right cheek. And as the droplet began to roll, ah caught it with mah tongue. And ah was shocked momentarily by that tear's sweetness, having known them only as bitter things - only bitter things - always bitter things.”
― Nick Cave, And the Ass Saw the Angel

“I've got some words of wisdom.”
― Nick Cave

“Out of sorrow entire worlds have been built
out of longing great wonders have been willed
they're only little tears darling let them spill
and lay your head upon my shoulder.”
― Nick Cave

“Hamlet got a gun now.”
― Nick Cave

“God has matured. He is not the impulsive, bowel-less being of the Testaments - the vehement glory-monger, with His bag of cheap carny tricks and his booming voice - the fiery huckster with his burning bushes and his wonder wands. Nowadays God knows what He wants and He knows who He wants.”
― Nick Cave

“And I wish that I was made of stone
So that I would not have to see
A beauty impossible to define
A beauty impossible to believe

A beauty impossible to endure
The blood imparted in little sips
The smell of you still on my hands
As I bring the cup up to my lips

No God up in the sky
No devil beneath the sea
Could do the job that you did, baby
Of bringing me to my knees”
― Nick Cave

“Listen, ah don't wanna speak ill of the dead but have ah told you that mah mother was a great whopping whale of a cunt? Well she was precisely that - a great whopping whale of a hog's cunt with a dirty maggot for a brain.”
― Nick Cave, And the Ass Saw the Angel

“Out of sorrow entire worlds have been built
Out of longing great wonders have been willed”
― Nick Cave, Complete Lyrics

“I think it's an essential fact for any performer or artist to fail as poignantly as they can succeed.”
― Nick Cave

“And I kissed away a thousand tears
My lady of the Various Sorrows
Some begged, some borrowed, some stolen
Some kept safe for tomorrow.”
― Nick Cave

“Stars have their moments then they die.”
― Nick Cave